0000000000697065
AUTHOR
Philipp Vana
Diffusion of single molecular and macromolecular probes during the free radical bulk polymerization of MMA : towards a better understanding of the Trommsdorff effect on a molecular level
Free radical bulk polymerizations exhibit complex kinetics due to the viscosity increase during the polymerization process. Especially the termination rate constant can be strongly influenced by the mobility of polymer chains in the polymerization mixture. As a consequence an autoacceleration period, the so-called Trommsdorff effect, can be observed often. In order to investigate this behaviour on a nanoscopic scale, we directly visualized the mobility of molecules and macromolecules in polymerizing MMA solutions using a combination of highly sensitive fluorescence correlation spectroscopy and widefield fluorescence microscopy. For this purpose, rather monodisperse PMMA chains were synthesi…
The Next 100 Years of Polymer Science
International audience; The year 2020 marks the 100th anniversary of the first article on poly merization, published by Hermann Staudinger. It is Staudinger who realized that polymers consist of long chains of covalently linked building blocks. Polymers have had a tremendous impact on the society ever since this initial publication. People live in a world that is almost impossible to imagine without synthetic polymers. But what does the future hold for polymer science? In this article, the editors and advisory board of Macromolecular Chemistry and Physics reflect on this question.